I posted a quick How-To for the PowerSwitchTail. Thanks for including the extra components, they worked like a charm with a low-current digital output pin. Adapter Circuit – The PowerSwitchTail requires 40ma to control the internal relay. The IO-204 supplies 20ma on each of its 4 I/O channels. In order for the IO-204 to trigger the internal relay of the PowerSwitchTail, you need to connect a simple current adapter circuit. If you buy the PowerSwitchTail from Adafruit, you will recieve the necessary parts to build the adapter circuit.
NEW PRODUCT – USB/DC Lithium Polymer battery charger 5-12V – 4.2v. Charge your single-cell lithium ion/polymer battery any which way you like with this board. Have a USB connection? No problem, just plug into the miniUSB connector. Only have a wall adapter? Any standard 2.1mm DC adapter which puts out 5 to 12VDC will work fine. If both are plugged in, the charger will automatically choose whichever has the highest voltage.
Other nice things about this charger include multiple LEDs for power & charging status, including a charging LED which will blink when the battery is full. If the charger gets too hot from high-speed charging, it will slow down the charge rate automatically. You can easily adjust the charge rate up to 1.2A or down to 100mA.
Charges one single-cell Lithium ion/polymer battery at 4.2V with constant current/constant voltage
Three indicator LEDs – green for Power, orange for charging and red for error
Charging LED will blink when the battery is full
You don’t have to worry about heat dissipation in the charger, even when plugging in a 12V DC power jack – thermal protection inside will slow down the charge rate to prevent damage
2 JST connections so you can keep the battery plugged in and powering your project
Terminal block connections galore (if you don’t like JST connectors) just solder in 3.5mm terminal blocks
Default charge rate is about 280mA, but you can easily change this by soldering in a through-hole resistor on. The chip can do 100-1200 mA charging
Safety timer will stop charging after about 14 hours
The chip supports a standard 10K thermistor, which we have stuffed as a standard resistor. You can solder in a thermistor easily
Slides from the NYC Resistor Battery class (PDF) by Dan Steingart, Printing & Electrochemical Engineering Laboratory Department of Chemical Engineering, CCNY.
If you’re curious about whether the our panels can take a beating, watch this video of our 2 Watt solar panel below. We use industrial materials for the backing of each panel and don’t skimp on the coating material (which is a fair amount of the total cost). Chances are you’ve seen solar panels that have yellowed or cracked over time. Think of these at the opposite to those panels. We’ve left panels like these out for years and they’re still producing near their spec and looking great.
These panels come to us from Voltaic Systems, makers of fine solar-powered bags and packs. These are waterproof, scratch resistant, and UV resistant. They use a high efficiency monocrystalline cell. They output 6V at 330 mA via 3.5mm x 1.3mm DC jack connector. The substrate is an aluminum / plastic composite, specifically designed to be strong and lightweight. They can easily stand up to typical outdoor use including being dropped and leaned on. They’re very high quality and suggested for projects that will be exposed to the outdoors.
The self-cleaning technology involves deposition of a transparent, electrically sensitive material deposited on glass or a transparent plastic sheet covering the panels. Sensors monitor dust levels on the surface of the panel and energize the material when dust concentration reaches a critical level. The electric charge sends a dust-repelling wave cascading over the surface of the material, lifting away the dust and transporting it off of the screen’s edges.
Mazumder said that within two minutes, the process removes about 90 percent of the dust deposited on a solar panel and requires only a small amount of the electricity generated by the panel for cleaning operations.
This is actually not any sort of product or public project (!) – its something we designed to help me evaluate solar panels and how they act when charging batteries. Normally this requires a lot of multimeters and its a bit of a pain to do if you have to constantly change out panels. So we decided we would build a specialized tool that would assist us. Here is what we wanted!
Portable! Its hard to test solar panels inside
Ability to log to an SD card for long-term data analysis (to be added later)
Keep track of the solar panel voltage
Keep track of the battery voltage
Keep track of how much current is going thru the panel to the charger
This design is intended for ~6V panels, single Lithium Polymer cells and chargers. It can very easily be adapted to any kind of panel and charger, you’ll just need to adjust the resistor dividers and such!
BACK IN STOCK – USB LiIon/LiPoly charger – v1.1! This is a Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer battery charger based on the MCP73833. It uses a USB mini-B for connection to any computer or ‘USB wall adapter’. Charging is performed in three stages: first a preconditioning charge, then a constant-current fast charge and finally a constant-voltage trickle charge to keep the battery topped-up. The fast-charge current is 200mA by default, but is easily adjustable from 100mA up to 1000mA by soldering a through-hole resistor on-board. This board is great for DIY projects because it has 3 indicator LEDs – one for power, one for charging status and a third that indicates when charging is complete. Keep the battery connected to the charger and pass power through the additional JST connector using the included cable!
Comes assembled and tested with a free bonus JST cable!
5V input via mini-B USB connector
For charging single Lithium Ion/Lithium Polymer 3.7/4.2v batteries (not for older 3.6/4.1v cells)
200mA charge current, adjustable up to 1000mA by soldering in a resistor
Separate JST connectors for battery and load system so batteries don’t have to be removed for charging
Chip supports a 10K thermistor which we have stuffed as a plain 10K. For people who require temperature monitors (using high charge rates), remove the 10K and solder in the thermistor in its place
0.1″ (2.54mm) pads next to the JST in case you want to use terminal blocks or connect it to a breadboard
Free 2-pin JST cable included!
Battery and USB cable not included (but they’re available in our store).
And these two books are back in stock too!
Practical Arduino (Jon Oxer & Hugh Blemings)
This book is best used for people who’ve gone through our tutorials and want more! Please note that the book does not come with any electronic parts or hardware. You’ll probably want an Arduino starter pack or similar so that you have the Arduino, USB cable, power adapter, wires, and a protoshield. Read more…
Make: Electronics (Charles Platt)
We checked out this book before putting it in the shop, its geared towards ultimate-beginners and teaches electronics starting from basic core of analog to some digital to microcontrollers. You’ll learn tools, prototyping soldering techniques, transistors, 555′s, etc. while completing useful projects. A nice and tidy intro! This book is a good accompaniment to learning microcontrollers/Arduino in that it fills the necessary electronics theory and background. Read more…
The purpose of this project was to provide an inexpensive communications network that does not rely on pre-existing infrastructure. Currently the system utilizes wind and solar energy to power a wifi repeater and VOIP phone. The power produced by the wind turbine and solar panel is monitored remotely using a hall-effect sensor and microcontroller.
The proposed system relies on access (through multiple repeaters if necessary) to an internet uplink in order to provide internet access. To overcome this limitation, the system could easily be expanded to be deployable anywhere through the use of a satellite phone/modem. However, the use of satellite phones would significantly increase the cost of the project. Since this project was funded by college students and a wifi network was readily accessible on campus, this was not a viable option for our prototype system.
6 x AA battery holder with 2.1mm plug – Make a portable power brick with plenty of juice! Use Alkaline AA’s for a 9V 3000-4000mAh power supply, or rechargeable NiMH for 2000mAh 7.5V supply. Either one is good for running electronics that have a 5V voltage regulator (thus requiring a 7V+ supply). Will last about 10 times longer than a 9V. Perfect for portable Arduinos! Batteries not included. Some quick soldering is required to attach the jack to the holder.
Previously there was a very popular Instructable on making your own “Solar MintyBoost” – before you needed to get parts from various places, now you can get them all in one spot – at the Adafruit shop!
So – if you want to make solar MintyBoost, here’s how –
Choose from either a 1W or 2W solar panel. Either will work, if you are using the smaller panel, we suggest removing R4 and replacing it with a 6.8K (or so) resistor which will keep the lipoly charger from trying to draw too much current from the panel.
Next up, you’ll need a mini-B USB cable to sacrifice. Use the one in the shop or find one in your room.
Note: While it may most devices, this will mostly likely not work consistently with the iPhone 3Gs and/or the iPhone 4. We will have a new MintyBoost and MintyBoost “rechargeable” soon, if you need to support those two devices specifically hold off until you see these new versions of our kits on our site.
Microsoft has come up with an amazingly obvious tweak to battery tech that should save us some headaches, as well as several trillion hours of head-scratching and peering into dark holes.
Named Instaload, the invention lets you stuff the batteries into a device any which-way you fancy, eliminating the need to read dark directional diagrams. The most impressive part is the low-tech way this is handled. Each contact in the battery compartment has both positive and negative terminals. If the fat, flat end of the battery is pressing against them, it touches the outside contact. If it is the pointy positive end then it makes contact with a slightly recessed inner contact. This, combined with some simple circuitry, makes sure the current is always running the right way.
You might be surprised that this particular company produced this incredibly simple solution to a common problem. And then you read about the complex legal restrictions, and you’re not so surprised anymore.
NEW PRODUCT – USB LiIon/LiPoly charger – v1.1. This is a Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer battery charger based on the MCP73833. It uses a USB mini-B for connection to any computer or ‘USB wall adapter’. Charging is performed in three stages: first a preconditioning charge, then a constant-current fast charge and finally a constant-voltage trickle charge to keep the battery topped-up. The fast-charge current is 200mA by default, but is easily adjustable from 100mA up to 1000mA by soldering a through-hole resistor on-board.
This board is great for DIY projects because it has 3 indicator LEDs – one for power, one for charging status and a third that indicates when charging is complete. Keep the battery connected to the charger and pass power through the additional JST connector using the included cable!
Comes assembled and tested with a free bonus JST cable!
5V input via mini-B USB connector
For charging single Lithium Ion/Lithium Polymer 3.7/4.2v batteries (not for older 3.6/4.1v cells)
200mA charge current, adjustable up to 1000mA by soldering in a resistor
Separate JST connectors for battery and load system so batteries don’t have to be removed for charging
0.1″ (2.54mm) pads next to the JST in case you want to use terminal blocks or connect it to a breadboard
NEW PRODUCT – Lithium Ion Polymer Battery – 1200mAh. Lithium ion polymer (also known as ‘lipo’ or ‘lipoly’) batteries are thin, light and powerful. The output ranges from 4.2V when completely charged to 3.7V. This battery has a capacity of 1200mAh for a total of about 4.5 Wh.
The batteries come pre-attached with a 2-pin JST-PH connector as shown and include the necessary protection circuitry. The protection circuitry keeps the battery voltage from going to high (over-charging) or low (over-use) which means that the battery will cut-out when completely dead. It will also protect against output shorts. However, even with this protection it is very important that you only use a LiIon/LiPoly constant-voltage/constant-current charger to recharge them and at a rate of 500mA or less.
Additional safety notes: Do not use a NiMH/NiCad/lead-acid charger! Also, do not abuse these batteries, do not short, bend, crush or puncture. As with all Lithium ion polymer batteries and with any power source – they should be used by experts who are comfortable working with power supplies.
Printable catalog (PDF)
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